[3] The county is named in honor of Robert Fulton,[4] who is widely credited with developing the first commercially successful steamboat.

On April 6, 1860, 10 square miles (26 km2) on the northern border was transferred to Hamilton in the vicinity of Sacandaga Park.

Sir William Johnson, 1st Baronet, was an Irish pioneer and army officer in colonial New York, and the British Superintendent of Indian Affairs from 1755 to 1774.

Fulton County was also home to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a central pioneer in America's women's rights movement.

Shortly after the American Revolutionary War, the manufacture of gloves and leather became the area's primary industry.

Many residents of Fulton County can trace their ancestry to the glove and leather trades.

[8] Fulton County is in the central part of the state, northwest of Albany, lying in the southern Adirondack Mountains.

The 2019 American Community Survey estimated there were 53,383 residents in the county, down from 55,531 at the 2010 United States Census.

17.2% were of Italian, 16.4% German, 13.2% Irish, 10.0% English, 8.3% American, 5.8% French and 5.7% Polish ancestry according to Census 2000.

[17] The county's Highways and Facilities Department is headquartered in Johnstown and is charged with maintaining roads, including:[18] Each town and village within Fulton County maintains its own highway department.

[20] A Democratic presidential nominee has only won twice in Fulton County since the Republican Party was founded, Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and Bill Clinton in 1996.

In 2019 the U.S. Census Bureau determined 87.4% of Fulton County's population obtained a high school degree or higher.